A Memory

My favorite earrings were given to me by a girl I met at a university in Ramallah, two years ago.

She had a pale face, dark hair, and very light blue eyes. When S-- saw her, she wanted to photograph her. The girl seemed hesitant at first, wary, but she said ok. S-- asked the girl if she wanted the boy she was sitting next to in the picture as well, but the girl shook her head emphatically and drew away from him.

(We did see co-ed groupings sitting together and talking on the campus, but it was much more common to see girls with girls and men with men. Apart from the tendency toward gender segregation, I was startled to realize that I felt as if I were walking around any university campus back home. The atmosphere of eager learning and potential was the same.)

I think the girl's name was Fatima. I made the mistake of telling her I liked her earrings, which are long and dangly and have old Palestinian coins on them, at which she immediately reached up and began to take them out of her ears.

"Here," she said.

"Oh no," I protested. "I can't take them."

"You like them?" she asked.

"Yes, but I don't want to take them from you."

"It's ok, I can get more any time," she said, holding them out to me.

I still tried to refuse, but the virtues of giving and hospitality are so important to Middle Eastern culture, and I began to worry I would hurt her feelings or dishonor her if I did not take the earrings. Also, in truth, I wanted them. So in the end I allowed her to put them in my hands.

"I have nothing to give you in return," I said, uncomfortably aware of the weight of a necklace at my throat, which in fact was something. But my cousin in Egypt had given it to me, and I felt wrong about giving away another's gift. Also, in truth, I wanted to keep it. So I did.

"It's ok," she said. "That would not be proper anyway."

She gave me her cell phone number in case I had any free time to meet with her later. As it turned out, we left Ramallah that afternoon, and in our short time remaining in Israel, did not go back. So I never saw her again, and probably never will.

But I think of her whenever I wear her earrings.

Now I wish I had given her the necklace. It broke before I even returned home, which was only a couple weeks after I met her. I still have the necklace, somewhere, but I cannot wear it.